James Joseph
God's Own Food Solution Pvt Ltd., India
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Diabetes Metab
For 60 years since its founding, Kerala took pride as the number one state in the country on life expectancy, receiving praise from
world renowned global health expert, professor Hans Rosling. Prof Rosling puts Kerala ahead of Washington DC on Human
Health Index at a fraction of per capita income. However, lifestyle diseases like diabetes is now in the order of an epidemic in the
state reducing the life expectancy of our adult population above the age group of 30. For the first time Kerala lost out its number one
position on life expectancy to Jammu and Kashmir due to an alarming drop in life expectancy after the age of 30 compared to J&K as
per 2010-14 census data. Root cause of our problem with diabetes and lifestyle diseases is the rapid increase of starch in our diet over
the past 60 years through rice, wheat, and tubers like cassava. Through years of policy interventions we were able to make starch more
affordable but the over correction is now hurting our health than helping it. In order for Kerala to get back and retain our number one
position in life expectancy, we have to cut back our starch consumption from half a plate to a quarter and increase consumption of our
grossly underutilized green jackfruits. This talk will scientifically explain why one of Kerala???s oldest traditions of eating green jackfruit
as a meal is the perfect plate for diabetes and lifestyle diseases. The results from the first glycemic research conducted on green
jackfruit at Sydney University, first randomized control trial on green jackfruit meal showing reduction in HbA1c are as follows.
1. Increased awareness from declaring Jackfruit as the Statefruit in March 2018 and the one meal campaign increased consumption
of green jackfruit meal during the season, April to June, with prices sky rocketing to Rs 20 ($ 0.3) per Kg for a fruit which was
mostly wasted.
2. From April 2018 the record showed a decline in Anti-diabetes medicine sales in Kerala government pharmacies reaching a 25%
drop in May and June compared to March.
3. After the Jackfruit season got over in July, sales started steadily increasing every month and by October it returned back to March
2018 level.
4. A review of three year sales record also showed month to month and year to year decline of medicine sales during the jackfruit
season in 2018, while there was a month to month and year to year increase in sales after the season.
Conclusions: The results clearly shows there is a definite relation between increased consumption of green jackfruit meal as an
alternate to rice and reduced demand for diabetes medicine in Kerala during jackfruit season. And a rapid increase in Diabetes
medicine sales when people switched back to rice after the season. This further shows the results already seen from the randomized
control study on 36 patients can be reproduced on a larger population state wide. We now have a) internal product data to establish
nutritional and glycemic advantage for green jackfruit, b) external interventional study on patients showing HbAa1c reduction with
jackfruit meal and c) empirical evidence on reduction in demand for diabetes medication during jackfruit season. While Kerala
is struggling to find a solution to contain its rapidly increasing health care costs and early deaths from life style diseases like type
2 diabetes, this study shows there is a significant opportunity to conduct a multi-center clinical trial on green jackfruit meal as an
alternate to rice and formulate policies to use its mostly wasted natural resource, green jackfruit as a medical nutrition therapy like
the Mediterranean diet recommended by ADA.
James Joseph has completed his Masters in Engineering Business Management from University of Warwick, UK and has a Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram.
E-mail: jamesjoseph@hotmail.com
